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Weeks of line-item detail and swapping one amount with another in the budget, as well as the pressure of revenue and other projections that amount to moving targets in the fiscal year, give way to approved operating and capital budgets as well as a property tax rate.

Memphis City Council members put to rest Tuesday, Dec. 16, at least the City Hall portion of the debate about city employee benefits and the liability of those benefits by approving changes to the city’s pension plan.

Memphis City Council members put to rest Tuesday, Dec. 16, at least the City Hall portion of the debate about city employee benefits and the liability of those benefits by approving changes to the city’s pension plan.

Shelby County citizens voted 2-to-1 Tuesday, Nov. 4, against a proposed amendment to the Tennessee Constitution that gives the Tennessee Legislature the power to regulate abortion, including in cases of rape or incest.

Shelby County citizens voted 2-to-1 Tuesday, Nov. 4, against a proposed amendment to the Tennessee Constitution that gives the Tennessee Legislature the power to regulate abortion, including in cases of rape or incest.

City of Memphis employees just emerged from the open enrollment period for the still-evolving changes in health insurance benefits for 2015. And city retirees are about to enter their open enrollment period for the same benefits plans that take effect in January.

Chancellor Walter Evans won’t rule until later this month on a move by city retirees to at least temporarily halt the city’s plan to end a 70 percent subsidy of health insurance premiums for city retirees.

KNOXVILLE – It doesn’t get much easier for the University of Tennessee’s football team.

The Sept. 20 open date has come and gone. UT’s coaches and players had ample time to digest and dissect details of the 34-10 loss to No. 4-ranked Oklahoma on Sept. 13 and a week to prepare for a challenge just as formidable.

The political struggle to close the door and lock in changes to city health insurance coverage is proving to be a challenge for the Memphis City Council.

The council voted Tuesday, Sept. 16, to adjust the health insurance changes it approved in June to grandfather in for a year approximately 300 retirees and their spouses when it comes to the 70 percent subsidy on insurance premiums they currently get from the city.

City government’s open enrollment period for health insurance begins in October and new details of health insurance benefit cuts approved in June go in the mail later this month. Yet Memphis City Council members meet in a special committee session next week to again review conflicting numbers from actuaries on the coverage.

KNOXVILLE – For better or worse, University of Tennessee football coach Butch Jones won’t need to wait long to see the talent level of his highly touted freshman class.

Jones will find out Sunday night at 7 when the Vols play host to Utah State at Neyland Stadium. The Aggies will be an underdog – probably by a touchdown or so – and a trendy pick for some as an upset special.

One of the most vocal critics of payment-in-lieu-of-taxes economic development incentives – or PILOTs – says he intends to make them an issue in the 2015 Memphis elections.

Rev. Kenneth Whalum Jr. said his problem with the property tax abatements is the lack of disclosure about their details and how companies getting them have met the goals of creating jobs for Memphians.

The head of the Economic Development Growth Engine organization says there is another side to the controversy over granting property tax abatements through payments-in-lieu-of-taxes that isn’t heard in the current civic discussion about the incentives.

The idea of a sales tax hike referendum in November to fund a restoration of cuts in city health care insurance benefits keeps rolling.

The Memphis chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference came out in favor of the citywide local option sales tax hike Tuesday, July 22, after a closed luncheon attended by leaders of municipal unions and Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr.

The ad hoc committee that gathered municipal union leaders, city retirees and Memphis City Council members at the same table to talk about city health insurance meets Thursday, July 17, for the first time since the council approved health insurance plan changes that have drawn vocal protests from city employees and retirees.

For about a year, Memphis Fire Department Director Alvin Benson has been taking ladder trucks out of service to deal with firefighters on vacation and on sick leave at much lower levels than those that surfaced Wednesday.

The president and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber says efforts by municipal union leaders to boycott business members of the chamber and get those businesses to drop their chamber membership is having only a minimal effect.

For years, the payment-in-lieu-of-taxes incentive used to recruit or retain jobs in Memphis and Shelby County has been a lightning rod for criticism, particularly from municipal labor unions who view the incentives as corporate welfare that erodes the tax base.

When several hundred firefighters, police officers and other city employees and retirees formed a picket line around City Hall Tuesday, June 24, it signaled the beginning of an escalating political dispute bigger than the City Council’s decision a week earlier to cut health insurance benefits for employees and retirees.

The leaders of the Memphis police and fire unions say they will sue the city over changes in employee health insurance approved this month and are prepared to add pension changes to the litigation if the council approves those changes next month.

The city’s operating and capital budgets are just about set for the new fiscal year next month. Hard decisions made about health insurance for city employees and retirees Tuesday, June 17, are unlikely to be revisited by the Memphis City Council.

The leaders of the city’s police and fire unions watched closely Tuesday, May 7, at City Hall as new numbers on the city’s pension liability from a new group of actuaries appeared to reset the ongoing discussion about city finances.

Former Shelby County Commissioner Deidre Malone will challenge incumbent Shelby County Mayor Mark Luttrell in the August county general election after winning the Tuesday, May 6, Democratic mayoral primary.

Shelby County voters will begin the process Tuesday, May 6, of electing a majority of new members to a Shelby County Commission that will also change to a set of 13 single-member districts when the winners take office on Sept. 1.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. warned Tuesday, April 15, that “half measures” in converting city employees to a defined contributions benefits plan would not restore the city’s financial health and resolve an unfunded pension liability of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Shelby County commissioners voted down a bid Monday, March 24, to rebid the county’s contract for federally funded family-planning services with Christ Community Health Services.

Some commissioners branded Commissioner Steve Mulroy’s effort to urge County Mayor Mark Luttrell’s administration to rebid the contract as a political effort. Mulroy is taking criticism from former Commissioner Deidre Malone in the three-way Democratic primary race for county mayor for his vote in favor of the contract in 2011.

The Memphis City Council chairman thinks the city shouldn’t take five or six years to ramp up to an annual pension fund contribution of $100 million but instead do it in two fiscal years.

“I think everyone is in uniform support of fully funding our annual contribution,” council chairman Jim Strickland said on the WKNO-TV program “Behind the Headlines.” “In fact, I don’t think we ought to take six years. I think we ought to take two years. Get it fully funded, whether its $60 million or $100 million.”

One of the six Shelby County Commission incumbents seeking re-election this year was effectively elected to a new four-year term in a new district with the noon Thursday, Feb. 20, filing deadline for candidates in the May county primaries.

Shelby County Commission Chairman James Harvey and former Shelby County Schools board member Kenneth Whalum Jr. have pulled qualifying petitions to run in the May Democratic primary for Shelby County Mayor.

Shelby County Commission Chairman James Harvey and former Shelby County Schools board member Kenneth Whalum Jr. have pulled qualifying petitions to run in the May Democratic primary for Shelby County Mayor.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. plans to ask the Memphis City Council sometime in February or March to close the city’s defined benefits pension plan to new hires and those city employees with less than 10 years of service.

There still isn’t an agreement on the numbers. But the administration of Memphis Mayor A C Wharton Jr. met late last week with leaders of the unions representing city employees about the conclusion in a consultant’s report that the city’s pension fund liability is unsustainable to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Interim County Mayor Joe Ford became the Democratic nominee for mayor in the August county general elections Tuesday night.

And the August sheriff’s race will be a contest between Democrat Randy Wade and Republican Randy Wade.

All three were among the winners in Tuesday’s low turnout county primaries.

Approximately ten percent of Shelby County’s nearly 600,000 voters cast ballots in early voting and election day polling.

Ford, who was appointed interim mayor in December, beat County Commissioner Deidre Malone and General Sessions Court Clerk Otis Jackson in the Democratic primary. He will face Republican Mark Luttrell who had only token opposition in the Republican primary from perennial contender Ernie Lunati.

Luttrell has raised more money than all three of the Democratic primary contenders combined and began running television ads in the last week runup to election day.

The final unofficial totals in the Democratic mayoral primary are:

Ford 20,360 57%

Malone 12,916 37%

Jackson 2,168 6%

The pair of primaries for Sheriff featured eight candidates, seven of whom either currently work for the sheriff’s department or are past employees. Only Reginald French, in the Democratic primary was not a former or current department official.

Wade was the 2002 Democratic nominee, losing to Luttrell who is leaving as Sheriff after serving two terms. French was the Democratic nominee in the 2006 elections.

Oldham is Luttrell’s chief deputy, the number two position in the department. He is also a former director of the Memphis Police Department.

Voters in the primary elections decided to return six Shelby County commissioners to new four year terms with Tuesday’s results. They also elected six new commissioners. The winner of the thirteenth commission seat will be decided on the August general election ballot in a contest between district 5 Democratic incumbent Steve Mulroy and Republican challenger Dr. Rolando Toyos. The winner of the match up will determine whether the commission remains majority Democrat or goes majority Republican.

In the remaining ten contests, the primaries decided who gets the seats since no one ran in the opposing party’s primary.

The most hotly contested contest among the commission races was for District 4 Position 1. Outgoing Probate Court Clerk Chris Thomas beat John Pellicciotti, appointed to a commission seat last year but running for a different position in the same district. Jim Bomprezzi, the former mayor of Lakeland, was the third contender in the contest.

The final unofficial totals in the Republican primary:

Thomas 7,631 52%

Pellicciotti 4,871 33%

Bomprezzi 2,298 15%

In position 2 of the same district incumbent Republican Wyatt Bunker easily overcame two challengers with former Lakeland alderman John Wilkerson finishing second and Ron Fittes finishing third.

Millington businessman Terry Roland claimed the third position in the district that takes in all six of Shelby County’s suburban towns and cities.

Roland beat George Chism to take the seat Pellicciotti was appointed to but opted not to run for in deference to Roland.

Heidi Shafer, an aide to outgoing County Commissioner George Flinn, claimed Flinn’s District 1 Position 2 seat over Albert Maduska.in the GOP primary.

In the Democratic commission primaries, Melvin Burgess claimed Malone’s District 2 Position 3 seat in a field of six contenders. His closest contender was Reginald Milton. Burgess, a city school system audit manager, had run for the seat before. He brought in 54 percent of the vote.

The other hard fought Democratic commission primary saw Justin Ford, son of the interim mayor, claim his father’s District 3 Position 3 seat.

Ford beat Edith Moore, a retired IBM executive, whom the commission appointed to the seat after the elder Ford became mayor.

The final unofficial vote totals are:

Ford 7,342 66%

Moore 3,822 34%

Democratic incumbent commissioners Henri Brooks, Sidney Chism and James Harvey were all re-elected over primary challengers.

The county-wide primaries for seven clerk’s positions saw the return of former Criminal Court Clerk Minerva Johnican 16 years after Republican challenger Bill Key took her job. Johnican decisively beat Ralph White and Vernon Johnson in her first bid for office since the 1994 defeat. She will face Republican Kevin Key, the son of Bill Key in the August general election.

The final unofficial vote totals are:

Johnican 16,381 51%

White 10,170 31%

Johnson 5,954 18%

Former Juvenile Court Clerk Shep Wilbun easily won the Democratic primary with 76 percent of the vote to face Republican Joy Touliatos in August for the office being vacated by Republican Steve Stamson. Touliatos was unopposed in the primary.

Aside from Leatherwood, Jimmy Moore is the only other of the seven clerks seeking re-election. Moore ran unopposed in the GOP primary. He will face Democrat Ricky Dixon in August.

Trustee Regina Newman was appointed to her office following the death last year of Paul Mattila. Newman easily overcame M LaTroy Williams in Tuesday’s Democratic primary. She will face David Lenoir, who beat former Shelby County Commissioner John Willingham in the Republican contest.

The final unofficial vote totals are:

Lenoir 15,922 58%

Willingham 11,569 42%

The other six candidate field on the ballot was in the Democratic primary for Probate Court Clerk. Sondra Becton posted impressive vote totals over her rivals, bringing in 35 percent of the vote with Peggy Dobbins her closest rival. Becton, who is making her fourth bid for the office, will face Republican Paul Boyd, who ran unopposed in his primary.

The closest contest of the evening was in the Democratic primary for County Clerk. Wrestling promoter and television personality Corey Maclin won his political debut by less than 1,400 votes over Charlotte Draper and LaKeith Miller. He will face Republican Wayne Mashburn who beat Steve Moore in the companion primary.

Early voting in advance of the Aug. 5 election day begins July 16. The August ballot will also feature state and federal primary elections including the statewide primaries for governor and the primaries for all nine of the state’s Congressional districts.

Meanwhile, the Democratic primary for mayor grew to three contenders as General Sessions Court Clerk Otis Jackson filed his qualifying petition just before the deadline. He joins interim County Mayor Joe Ford and Shelby County Commissioner Deidre Malone.

Luttrell ruled out a bid for Shelby County mayor last year (2009). But when Harold Byrd decided not to run in the Democratic primary, some local GOP leaders asked Luttrell to reconsider.

The result touched off a scramble of candidates from both parties for the open sheriff’s office. But before the noon deadline, the initial field of over a dozen possible contenders was narrowed to ten – six Democrats and four Republicans.

The other surprise at the filing deadline was the return of attorney Walter Bailey to the District 2 Position 1 seat he gave up in the 2006 elections. Bailey sought re-election then to another term despite a two term limit on commissioners. Bailey lost to J.W. Gibson who decided not to seek re-election. He also lost a court fight to overturn the term limits.

Bailey was the only candidate who had filed for the seat at the Thursday deadline.

Only one incumbent county commissioner – Republican Mike Ritz -- was effectively re-elected at the deadline because he had no opposition.

All but one of the eleven contested County Commission races will be decided with the May 4 primaries. The only general election battle for the August ballot is the district 5 contest between GOP challenger Dr. Rolando Toyos and whoever wins the May Democratic primary between incumbent Steve Mulroy and Jennings Bernard.

Former County Commissioner John Willingham also returned to the ballot among a field of Republican contenders in the primary for Shelby County Trustee.

And former Criminal Court Clerk Minerva Johnican joined the Democratic primary field for her old job. Incumbent Republican Bill Key pulled petition to seek re-election but did not file at the deadline.

Here is the list of races and contenders from The Shelby County Election Commission. All candidate have until noon Feb. 25 to withdraw from the ballot if they wish.

The invitations urged political supporters to “Return Shep Wilbun” to the Memphis-Shelby County Juvenile Court Clerk’s office.

At a club on South Main Street this month as FedExForum began to fill up a few blocks away, Wilbun hosted an evening fundraiser at $100 a head. It drew State Reps. Ulysses Jones, Larry Miller and Joe Towns as well as Shelby County Commissioner Steve Mulroy.

The political fortunes of the Shelby County Democratic Party haven’t been this high in awhile.

Democrats have high hopes for the 2010 county elections. In the 2006 elections, four Democratic challengers of Republican incumbents in countywide offices came within 1,000 votes of wins. Democrats picked up a countywide office in the 2008 elections when Otis Jackson, one of the four Democrats who got close but not close enough two years earlier, upset Republican incumbent Chris Turner in the General Sessions Court clerk’s race.

Caron Byrd has been hired as executive director of the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis. Previously, Byrd served as deputy manager of the Mid-South chapter of the American Red Cross, where she was employed for more than 11 years.

Shelby County Commissioners delayed action Monday on an ordinance putting new requirements on sexually oriented businesses to see if they can turn it into a joint ordinance that would also apply to the city of Memphis.

Rosemarie Fair was installed as president of the Tennessee Association of Realtors for 2006. Fair, CEO of Memphis-based One Source Commercial Inc., was named TAR Realtor of the Year in 2004. The Memphis Area Association of Realtors named her Realtor of the Year in 1991.

G. Patrick Arnoult, Memphis Bar Association president, has released the report of the nominations and elections committee.

The 2002 president will be David Wade. Vice...

86. Archived Article: Memos - Wednesday, August 08, 2001 Dr Dr. William M. Locante, a Memphis dentist, was elected president of the Southern District, American Academy of Implant Dentistry. The academy has 2,000 members and is one of the oldest professional organizations dedicated to the advancement of im...

87. Archived Article: Community Focus - Friday, April 21, 2000 By Stacey Wiedower Corporate support is key in new Red Cross event By Stacey Wiedower The Daily News Thanks to the corporate community and the American Red Cross, a segment of the population not often highlighted by the non-profit sector soon will b...

88. Archived Article: Comm Focus - Friday, May 14, 1999 By STACEY PETSCHAUER Soul spotlight Weekend festival will showcase Memphis talent and celebrate its soul music legacy By STACEY PETSCHAUER The Daily News Any notion that Memphis rich legacy of soul exists only in memories of bygone days will be disp...